


I Wrote Your Name Into My Heart

by enthroned



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:49:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthroned/pseuds/enthroned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Alex has many names for Hank, but they both agree that one suits him best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wrote Your Name Into My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this is from the poem "I Wrote Your Name Into My Heart" by Jason Graham.

The night he calls Hank “Big Foot,” Alex feels his stomach twist in on itself when he sees the expression of hurt and disappointment flash across the kid’s face. He’s taken aback by his own reaction, not even recovering enough to shoot back a half-enraged glare at Raven – oh, excuse him, at Mystique – after she makes a snide, albeit not very clever comment, about the size of his own feet. The flare of anger in his eyes is misdirected downward, toward his feet, which are not, he tells himself, small at all. Later, after they’ve all been scolded like a pack of rowdy preschoolers and everyone else has turned in for the night, Alex and his not-so-tiny feet pause at the door to an unfamiliar room. He knocks but doesn’t bother waiting for a response from the other side before testing the knob and feeling it give way beneath his fingers. Hank is already propped up in his bed – it’s more of a cot than anything else – and his glasses aren’t pushed up the bridge of his nose for once. He looks about ready to speak, or at least to make some sort of startled noise at the back of his throat, but keeps it to himself when Alex exhales loudly through his nose and takes a tentative step closer. Alex thinks about reaching out, ghosting his fingers along the thin blanket that shields those same feet now. But then he remembers the way the kid visibly shrunk back, turned his entire body away and averted his gaze the second Alex opened his troublesome mouth a few hours earlier. Instead, he says, “I’m glad I wrecked that stupid statue,” and can almost feel Hank flinch as he breezes out the door. 

The day he calls Hank “Bozo,” Alex nearly puts his teeth straight through his lower lip as he watches him walk away. Charles says something in what sounds like a rather reprimanding tone, but he doesn’t really hear it at all. He’s much too focused on the retreating figure, the slouch of Hank’s shoulders becoming even more apparent the farther away he gets from Alex and the scene of his stupid crime. When Hank is completely out of sight, Alex decides to skip his practice session in the bunker in favor of taking a jog around the property, the same activity he had managed to spoil for the boy wonder. He makes it three loops around before he realizes the sun is down and the light in the dining room is flicked on. There isn’t time to change before dinner is served, and so he takes his usual seat by Sean and gives him a look that tells him not to comment about the smell. Hank, he realizes, never makes it to the table. After the table is cleared, Charles makes a comment about taking a plate to the lab, where he assumes Hank must be hiding. Alex nearly wrestles the plate of food out of his hands in a silent offer to do it himself; Charles doesn’t argue. He’s never been inside the lab and he feels like he might break five different things the moment he steps inside. Hank’s head only turns toward him when Alex knocks into a bench and rattles the beakers placed delicately on top of it. He thinks about apologizing – for possibly ruining some experiment, for earlier in the day – but doesn’t. Instead, he drops the plate down on the nearest flat surface. It lands with a clatter, but neither boy startles at the noise. Four rows of benches separate them, separate Hank from his mostly cold dinner. “Your nose is fine the way it is,” Alex grumbles and almost takes out a microscope or five in his hasty retreat.

The day he calls Hank “Beast,” Alex swears his heart pumps double-time in his chest from the look he gets in exchange for the new moniker. He tries to convince himself that it’s all a normal reaction to their current situation, which somehow involves a rather impressive aircraft, designed and now operated by the blue-furred Hank, and an attempt to put an end to an impending nuclear war. But no, that’s not it at all. With one of Shaw’s two pawns taken out of the equation temporarily, Alex can hear Hank’s ragged breathing just off to one side of him. Hell, he can feel each exhale against the curve of his neck and he becomes acutely aware of just how close the kid is to him. It doesn’t last long, though; not nearly long enough, he almost thinks before they’re both suddenly falling through the sky. He truly hates this crimson-skinned demon and his knack for teleportation. When he calls out the name again, Alex expects it to be the last word he ever speaks before he’s sent to his bone-crushing death. In the moment, he’s oddly okay with his choice of last words. But then he’s not dying, not rushing toward the burst of light he assumes comes with this sort of thing, not being ushered away from this life, from all of that startling blue fur, by a hooded figure with a scythe in its skeletal hands. Alex knows there’s more to the day, more destruction especially. For now, all he wants to do is thank Hank, to express that he’ll work to repay this debt. But Charles is on the sand, Raven is gone, and there’s simply no time. Still, as they both take a knee beside their fallen comrade, Alex chances a glance over at Hank and receives a knowing nod in response.

The night he calls Hank “Hank,” Alex wonders what really took him so long. It takes a bottle of wine, not cheap and also not stolen, and the closest thing to an apology he’s ever managed to say to anyone, but it slips out and he can feel the electricity snap over his tongue with each letter. Hank’s eyes widen just slightly, but Alex isn’t sure if that has to do with the wine, the apology, or the way his name sounds on such a cold and misunderstood tongue. They share the wine, straight from the bottle on Alex’s own insistence, and make themselves comfortable on Hank’s bed, which no longer resembles a cot. He shifts just a little in order to keep his arm from falling asleep beneath him, but stops when a hand, large and warm and oh so blue, comes up to cradle the back of his head. Alex should duck away, but he doesn’t. Hank doesn’t say a word and guides Alex’s head down, down to his broad chest that heaves so high with every inhale. He chooses not to protest because he cannot find anything particularly negative or unsatisfying about this new position. There are nails – Alex refuses to think of them as claws – trailing lightly along his scalp; another palm, radiating warmth too, comes to rest against his lower back, having just finished tracing a shaky pattern down the length of his spine. This, Alex decides, is much more comfortable than the position he had contorted himself into earlier. He doesn’t want to move, and it doesn’t seem as if he will be asked to at any moment in the near future. He tests the weight of the name against his tongue again and adds, “I think I like that best.” Hank replies with something that sounds distinctly like a growl, and Alex assumes that means he agrees.


End file.
